Black Dawn
by Lari
Summary: Mara Phoenix returns to the Alliance after the destruction of the Death Star and finds nothing as she left it... A sequel to Dark Star.
1. Prologue

A/N #1: It's been forever and a day since I've posted anything in the way of fanfiction, but Darth Real Life has been exceptionally persistent, not to mention the fact that this Prologue kept getting written in my head inappropriately. I think I've gotten it basically how I want it now. If anyone thinks I've rated this too low, _please_ let me know!  
  
A/N #2: If you haven't read Dark Star (also on ff.net) then this won't make much sense. Whereas that fic was focused almost exclusively on Leia Darkstar, this fic, following a few weeks after the end of Dark Star, will focus mainly on a character from the same universe who never actually made an appearance in that story: Mara Phoenix. Leia will definitely be in this, but Mara's the main character this time.  
  
A/N #3: I named Mara Phoenix before I had ever read the Harry Potter series. Part of me wants to change the name, now that it's become so much a part of pop culture, but...well, I still think it's appropriate, if currently unoriginal - Lari  
  
  
  
**_Black Dawn_**  
  
**Prologue**  
  
She waited until they were safely in hyperspace. She had pushed the desire away—pushed and pushed it until it was barely more than an irritating tingle at the back of her mind. But as soon as the starlines appeared the desire came back full force and she nearly ran from the cockpit.   
  
She didn't bother to look at him. She didn't _want_ to look at him. She didn't want to see him looking at her—looking at her and knowing. Soon, she told herself, soon they would meet up with the others and he would be sent off. Sent far away, if she had anything to say about it. She couldn't have him there. Looking at her. They would know. Everyone would know.  
  
_Biggs_ would know.  
  
She moved so quickly to the fresher that she would have stubbed a toe or bruised a finger against the door, if she hadn't shifted her body's momentum to the side at the last moment. Someone else would probably have banged right into the door. Not a month ago, she would have crowed to herself about her own abilities. She took a secret, intense pride in her control over her own body.   
  
She had been perhaps ten years old when she had noticed for the first time that most other people moved differently than she did.   
  
She liked to play a game at that age, jumping from increasing heights and trying to land as soundlessly as possible. (This game had cost her a broken toe, once, a skinned knee, and a severe talking-to from her father—though she had overheard him talking proudly to one of the other generals about his fearless daughter soon after, so the scolding had little effect.) She was helping one of her father's mechanics with repairs on a battered Y-Wing ("helping" consisted of handing him his tools and asking any question that occurred to her as he worked), when she heard a loud thump from nearby, followed by two even louder thumps. She turned to see three pilots who had just jumped from the short platform that served as a command center in that particular base. It was a height she had perfected a silent jump from long ago and to see three grown men making the jump so clumsily surprised her.   
  
After that, she began to pay attention to the way other people moved and she realized that they—for the most part—seemed to move more heavily than she did. At least more heavily than the way she _felt_ that she moved. But, as this "lightness" (as she liked to think of it) never seemed to give her any real advantage building or fixing ships or in flying, the excitement of her discovery remained a very private thing.   
  
She had only ever told Biggs about it and, while she wasn't sure that he really understood what she meant by "lightness," he seemed to understand the almost guilty pride she felt. He said that he often felt the same way about his ability to make friends in any situation and to pick out the sort of kindred spirits that made life-long friends. She had smiled when he said this, because she knew that she was one of his "kindred spirits." But then he had looked at her in a way that made her think that he thought of her as something more than a kindred spirit, and she quickly turned away so that he wouldn't see her blush.  
  
She wondered if he would ever look at her that way again.  
  
The fresher door slid shut with a _whoosh_ behind her and she was finally alone. Alone, really alone, and safe for the first time in almost two weeks.  
  
She collapsed against the sink and let her forehead fall against the cold mirror. She held the position for a few moments, breathing deeply, as though she had just run a marathon, before finally doing what she had raced in here to do in the first place. She lifted her head and stared directly at her reflection.  
  
She almost cried when she saw the face that stared back at her. Instead she exhaled slowly through trembling lips and let her shoulders slump in a sort of tortured relief.  
  
She hadn't been able to look in the mirror like this since…not since the beginning. She wondered whether she would ever be able to do it again: Look in the mirror and see her own face looking back. Somehow, she doubted it.  
  
But the face, the stranger's face, she saw now was so different—so utterly and blissfully different—that she watched it without any feelings of revulsion.  
  
This other woman's skin was a light brown color that matched her eyes and suited her dark hair, lying in ringlets about her face. She reached up to tug on one of the ringlets in wonder, stretching it out so that it reached just past her shoulder. Then she suddenly let it go in horror. Even as she stood there, her skin and eye color were slowly but surely fading to reveal fair skin and deep green eyes. The hair stayed the same, but the face was suddenly and unpleasantly familiar.  
  
She steeled herself, forcing herself not to look away. She focused her attention on her hair, letting her eyes flicker down to the jar of dye-stripper he had left for her there and quickly back up again.  
  
Biggs loved her hair. He had told her so once, on that sweet, sweet night when he had kissed her. The only time he had kissed her. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine how it had felt. His lips touching hers so softly and gently that she knew the extra drinks had only loosened his inhibitions, not confused his feelings.  
  
She touched her own lips, hoping to spark her memory. The warmth of his lips, the ticklish scratch of his mustache against her upper lip, the way he had touched her face afterwards with the tips of his fingers and just looked at her as though she was the most astonishing and precious thing in the world. His profuse apologies the next morning had done nothing to ruin the moment in her mind. She knew that she was too young. The fact that he never once, in any of his apologies, vowed not to do it again told her that he was willing to wait. That she was worth the wait to him.  
  
She had replayed that memory over and over again in her mind—his fingers against her cheek, his eyes completely open and honest—that first night. She had imagined Biggs leaning in to kiss her, more passionately this time, Biggs holding her tightly in his arms, Biggs tangling his fingers in her hair and telling her how beautiful it was. How that was what had made him notice her from his private table from across a bar crowded with Imperials, that was what had made him send his personal guards for her, that was what had made him decide to have her….   
  
But Biggs had never said those things, had never done those things. _Would_ never say those things or do those things to a girl as young as she was, even if she _had_ worn a nice dress and put on some make-up. He had only kissed her once, chastely, in a moment of weakness, he had never asked for…certainly would never have _demanded_…more. He had admitted that he loved her hair when he had had too much to drink, and had then been appalled at his own gall. He had never touched it, had never tugged at it, would have been horrified to pull her by it even accidentally. He would certainly never use it to hold her in place, pulling it back so tightly that tears came to her eyes.  
  
So she had lost the memory at some point that first night. Or maybe it was later, in the days that followed—she couldn't know anymore when it had happened. She only knew that it was gone. That the admiral had torn it from her, leaving a gaping wound that couldn't be healed by any of the med-droids he sent to heal her more obvious, and less painful, marks.  
  
She could never successfully imagine that it was Biggs instead of the admiral, or any of the generals he sometimes sent to her, so she had eventually shut off the reflex that brought him to mind as soon as one of them walked in. The only luxury she allowed herself was the distant thought that when—if—she escaped, she would go to Biggs, would hug him, would allow him to hug her tightly and securely, once—just once—before he could look at her properly. Before he could look into her eyes and know.  
  
She focused on that thought, on her escape, and on her overwhelming need—it had almost become an obsession—to leave with information, with some sort of valuable information for the Alliance. Something so that her imprisonment on this base would be justified. Would be worthwhile, even. So that it would be a sacrifice—a costly one, perhaps, but others had sacrificed more. Her father had sacrificed his life.  
  
The information she had gathered on her own from her room. Her room that was bereft of even the simplest drink console. But she had managed to cut out the back of her closet—the one place where the security cameras were absent—and hooked herself into the base's main computer using nothing more than the tiny music player she had been allowed. It had been enough. She couldn't know quite what was on the numerous chips she had loaded, but she knew that there would be something. There _had_ to be something.  
  
The admiral himself had provided the escape. When the captain had walked into her room, alone, looking nervous and uncertain, she hadn't dared to hope. But he had spoken to her first, spoken to her politely, though with a considerable amount of unease. None of the others had done that. She had jumped upon it, and as soon as she saw his expression of horror that she was not, in fact, there by choice, she knew that she could persuade him to help her. They had spent their one time together planning and she had prepared herself as best she could while he was there—while the security cameras were still shut off, as they always were when she had company. Two days later, they were gone. Both of them.  
  
She allowed herself to see the irony—that after everything she had still managed to bring back a new recruit—but she could find little humor in it.  
  
And now she looked at herself fiercely in the mirror, eyeing the brown, curly hair, so different from the hair that Biggs loved. She reached for the dye-stripper and popped open the top, trying to imagine Biggs' face. The way it looked when she caught him looking at her. She tried to imagine how his arms would feel when she stole a last hug from him.  
  
Instead she saw the admiral, heard the admiral, and felt his hands in her hair. Her hand jerked involuntarily and the jar dropped, with a clatter, into the sink. She watched, numbly, as the contents disappeared down the drain, and did nothing to stop them.  
  
She forced her eyes away from the sink and back to the reflection in the mirror. Before she even knew what it was she was going to do, her hand had reached for the shelf next to her, had pulled down a small vibro-blade—the type that some men used to shave—and had cut off a large section of her hair. Within a few minutes it was all gone, shorn close to her head—so close that had it been its true color, she might have looked completely bald.  
  
The face in the mirror was not nearly so repulsive this way.  
  
"Miss…I mean, Mara…are you all right in there?"  
  
Her head jerked to the side at the unwanted intrusion. Why couldn't he just leave her alone?  
  
"I'm fine," she said, in a surprisingly controlled tone of voice. "I'll be out in just a minute. I'm fine."  
  
She held her breath, hoping he would move away so that she wouldn't have to face him when she walked out.  
  
"All right," he said finally, not sounding convinced. "I'll be in the cockpit."  
  
She didn't respond this time, though he must have been waiting for her to, because it took another few moments for her to hear the sound of his footsteps moving away.  
  
After sweeping the locks of hair down the toilet, she glanced back for a final time at the mirror. She didn't recognize herself at first, and almost jumped in fear, wondering, irrationally, how a boy had gotten into the fresher with her. But the thought died before it could really be formed.   
  
_A boy,_ she thought. _I look like a boy._  
  
When she left the fresher, she had a tiny smile on her face.


	2. Arrival

A/N: **Renee** – Thanks for noticing!! J  
  
This chapter was somewhat of an experiment. I was driving someplace by myself and I decided to bring along a tape recorder and dictate the chapter as I drove. It actually worked, although I don't think I'll ever be doing it again. I edit as I write by _seeing_ what I've written. It's much harder to do when you can't see anything. Of course, there are also these huge gaps on the tape where I couldn't think of a word…makes me realize how addicted I am to the thesaurus on my word processor! Anyway, this was a totally irrelevant note, but I thought I'd share! - Lari  
  


* * *

  
**Part One – _Denial_**  
Chapter One  
  
Luke was facing away from the hangar entrance as he spoke with the other pilots, so he didn't see the small shuttle when it came in. They were talking enthusiastically about the rumors going around that Commander Narra wanted to establish an elite group of pilots who would work together on a permanent basis.  
  
Of course, even if he _had_ seen the shuttle, whose hatch was just now opening, he wouldn't have thought much of it. It was an extremely old and worn down Taylander Shuttle, not quite enough to whet a fighter pilot's appetite. So when he saw the short boy come up to join them out of the corner of his eye, he assumed it was just another one of the pilots from the base.  
  
"But how will he choose who gets in?" Wedge was asking.  
  
"I suppose he'll test people on the sims, base it on battle experience, too…" Luke answered.  
  
"Then what?"  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"What if someone else comes who's an even better pilot? Will he just kick someone off the team?" A few of the other pilots murmured angrily about this possibility.  
  
"No," Luke said, frustrated. The concept seemed so clear to him. "The whole point is that the team will fight better the longer they've flown together. It doesn't matter if there're other new pilots who are better."  
  
One of the other pilots, a tall boy, a year or two older than Luke chimed in. "So new pilots don't get a shot?" He grinned at Luke meaningfully.  
  
Luke rolled his eyes. Nobody seemed to forget that he was a "rookie." He wondered how they would have treated him if he _hadn't_ blown up the Death Star. "They can still fly, just not with that squadron. Well, not at first. I bet Narra'll have alternates. You know, people who train with them, but are only sent on missions when someone isn't available, or if someone…" He trailed off. The casualties from the Death Star battle were still too fresh on everyone's mind.  
  
Wedge looked at Luke, skeptically and opened his mouth to respond. But his gaze drifted past Luke and, suddenly, his eyes went wide.  
  
Luke turned to see the boy who had come up on his right and realized immediately that it wasn't one of the pilots he recognized, in fact, it wasn't a boy. The girl's clothes were baggy enough to conceal her more obviously feminine attributes, but the bone structure of her face gave her away. While she was pretty enough, Luke didn't see quite what had rendered Wedge speechless.  
  
The girl seemed somewhat dazed and didn't even notice Wedge's stare. She was looking around at the faces of all the other pilots, as though trying to find someone in particular.  
  
"Mara?" Wedge said, softly.  
  
The girl's eyes snapped immediately to Wedge.  
  
"Mara, is that you?"  
  
The girl just stared back at him. Luke looked at Wedge in surprise then back at the girl. Mara? Could this be the same Mara that Biggs had spoken of? He didn't think so. He distinctly remembered Biggs going on about "hair the color of suns' set." This girl's hair was decidedly unremarkable and nearly as dark as Wedge's.  
  
"Where's Biggs?" the girl said brusquely, not bothering to answer Wedge's question.  
  
Luke flinched at the sound of his friend's name.  
  
"Mara," Wedge began, then seemed to choke on his words.  
  
"Where is he?" the girl—Mara—demanded again.  
  
"Mara, he's…" Wedge hesitated. "Did you hear about the battle?" he tried again.  
  
"Where's Biggs?" Mara sounded almost annoyed.  
  
"Mara, Biggs…he…" Wedge swallowed hard. "Biggs didn't make it, Mara."  
  
Wedge's words didn't seem to register with Mara at all. Her expression didn't change, she just continued to stare at him, as though expecting him to conjure Biggs up out of thin air.  
  
"Where is he?" she said again.  
  
She seemed emotionless, but Luke noticed that her breathing was becoming somewhat irregular.  
  
"Mara, he's gone," Wedge told her softly.  
  
"No!"  
  
People turned around to watch them at the sound of Mara's shout.  
  
"No. Tell me where he is, Antilles!"  
  
Wedge took a shuffling step back, but didn't answer Mara. What could he say?  
  
"Just tell me where he is!" Mara said again, the desperation clear in her voice. She looked as though she might launch herself at Wedge…_force_ him to tell her something that he couldn't.  
  
Luke saw her eyes water up and her face contort in sorrow…or rage—he couldn't tell which. He only knew that he didn't want to watch it. He _couldn't_ watch someone who looked like that—like they'd lost everything. It reminded him too much of what he had lost.  
  
"Mara." One of the other pilots stupidly reached out a comforting hand and put it on her shoulder.  
  
Almost like a spring uncoiling, Mara lashed out at the pilot's arm.  
  
"Don't touch me! Don't you dare touch me. Just tell me where he is." She jabbed her finger out at them, gesturing wildly. "Tell me!" She stepped back when no one answered her, looking almost deflated. "Biggs," she whispered. "I need Biggs."   
  
She turned away from them, looking around frantically, as though they were hiding Biggs in another part of the station.  
  
Suddenly she seemed to spot something and ran full tilt over to where Luke could see Han and Chewie standing together by the Falcon. She put her hand on Han's arm, but when he turned around, Luke could hear a shrill sob escape her. Han stared at her in confusion, as she stumbled two steps back, then ran to catch her as she fell to the ground in a faint.  


* * *

  
  
A/N: Hm. That was terribly over-dramatic, wasn't it? Ah, well. Don't worry, I can't keep up this mood throughout the whole story, it'll get less depressing in the next chapter. Luke and Mara will actually talk, you'll find out what ever happened to "the captain" from the prologue. And, of course, Luke will find out what a belly-board is. Aren't you excited now? J  
  



End file.
